What would you write if you weren’t afraid?
For #WritingWednesday, that’s my big question. What would you write if you weren’t afraid… of what people would say, of getting it wrong, of sounding irrelevant, of being judged? What would you write if you weren’t afraid?
I’d write more about my children. Because I have a public blog, I don’t use it to write about my kids because then, there it is, my version of events, my story, true, true, but of their lives, to live on forever. Forget how it would impact their future employment or friendships, what about their now? I can’t write about my daily struggles with other mothers, their education, with my kids’ friends, with that one girl who comes to my house for a play date and gives me hives. I can’t write about these things because it impacts the life we’re all living. It plays out in slights. In narrowed eyes. We’re not included because someone fears I might write about it. So, I’ve had to stop writing about them. Their struggles are their own, again true. But they’re also MY struggles, as I struggle with how to help (or help by choosing not to help) them. I wish I could just dump it all up here, but it’s reckless, and it’s social suicide. Does anyone else get this?
I didn’t mind dying a slow dating death when I was able to write any and everything about my dating life, but to write about my kids requires a whole separate owner’s manual. I’ve never minded much writing about my marriage because Phil’s a big boy. “The Suitor” knew what he was getting into when he took this job–he knew me first, after all, through this blog, before I even met him in person! I haven’t written about it lately. Maybe I will more.
I also don’t write about things I want to include in books because why buy the book if it’s all on the blog? Given that I’m a memoirist, though, what’s left to include on a blog? Other than… and here it comes… throat clearing. I’ve said it for years, but, my God, I stopped listening! This arena is for keeping the whole machine going. It’s for being lubed up! If I don’t blog, I don’t get to the good stuff. I need to clear my mind, to (writing) exercise, and to play. Thank goodness for #WritingWednesday.
So, join me. Feel free to post and list your #WritingWednesday entry in the comments below.
[bctt tweet=”What would you write if you weren’t afraid? #WritingWednesday”]
ANNOUNCEMENT: I’ll be speaking and teaching at this amazing Writer’s Conference in Dallas, TX. May 6-7, 2017. I would LOVE some company, Y’all! xoxo
Ahh “The Suitor” – I think I need to re-read my (very dog-eared and much loved) copy of Straight Up and Dirty! This question is a good one. I definitely have a nice answer to write about this week! I totally get your reasoning behind not writing about your kids. Although my blog is mostly read by my Facebook friends, each time I write about someone/something/anything at all, I tend to get feedback from one family member or another that feels slighted somehow. I can’t imagine it on a grander scale!
I’ve always wondered about the balance you have to strike when publicly writing about your life. I totally get that you would be excluded because people are afraid to see themselves in the blog. Most of us hate having our underbellies exposed.
What would I write? Well, I live behind an alias here, so people don’t really know who I am. This has given me the ability to write honestly about things that would scandalize and/or surprise the people who know me best.
My problem with writing now is I think I sound preachy and patronizing. I’m so ridiculously happy, and things are in such a good place, that I’m boring. Taking the last umpteen years and trying to rekindle the raw emotion I had at the breaking place in my marriage is not only not possible, it is not desirable. I don’t want to be in the pain I was in order to be relevant.
So – happy and boring, or broken and relevant? At the moment, I opting for happy and boring.
I wish I’d had the drive during raw and broken to publish a book – to write the journey of the awful divorce and raising the darlings alone. I have friends going through the destruction of their lives, and they ask how I got through it. I go back to my journal and your blog and my writings and try to put them into some meaningful order, but then it just hurts my feelings and I leave it alone.
I’m happy you shared your life on the blog and that you inspired so many of us to do so as well. I go back to the early posts, and value what you brought out of so many of us. You gave us the stage to vent, to work through awful or good, to help or judge each other. You rock.
You rock, too. xo
Baptists.
Pingback: #WritingWednesday…a week late – Hot Mess, Cool Day